


Dissolve

by TerrificMango



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Infinity War spoilers, but doesn't really involve any of the characters in iw, just based off iw events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 14:03:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14474250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerrificMango/pseuds/TerrificMango
Summary: You wake up in the morning and check to see who’s still alive.





	Dissolve

**Author's Note:**

> *Infinity War spoilers*
> 
> So, I don't really know how long the situation with Thanos killing half the universe is going to last, since I feel like it's probably going to be undone in Avengers 4. Still though, the idea of half of the Earth dying (and especially the end credits scene) made me really think about what the world would be like in the aftermath, and from the perspective of normal people. So, I wrote this.

When you wake up, your mouth is dry and your eyes are wet.

You stare up at the ceiling for a while.

After an eternity, you slowly start to push yourself up, out of bed. The bed frame creaks loudly. The apartment is empty and still.

You look at the clock; it’s 8:00.

It’s been sixteen hours.

Sixteen hours since people started dying.

Sixteen hours since people started dissolving into dust with no rhyme or reason.

Sixteen hours since you ran down the street, people dissolving left and right, ash blowing in your face and your eyes, until finally you forced open the door to your apartment just in time to see the cloud of dust that used to be your mother blow away.

You cry again.  
  
 

After you clean yourself up, you turn on your phone and go through the list of contacts. You start calling every person.

A lot of people don’t pick up. Your dad doesn’t pick up. You dial the number three different times before you let out a shaky breath and stop. If someone doesn’t respond, you assume they’re gone.

Ned Leeds is the first person you know from school to answer the phone. You don’t even know him that well; you only have his number because you worked with him on a project once.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” you repeat, awkwardly. “I was just checking…” You trail off, but you both understand the meaning.

“...We should meet up,” he says. “Bring everyone you know from school.” _So we can see who’s still here,_ he doesn’t say.

You swallow. “Okay. Where should we meet?”

“In front of the school, I guess.”

You agree on a time- 12, to give everyone time to get in contact with one another. Then you hang up and continue calling people.

Some of your friends and family members answer. You cry on the phone together, grateful to be alive and still be able to talk to one another. Others don’t, and for most of them you’re too numb to even cry anymore.

You tell your school friends about the meeting and all of them agree to come.

 

At 11:30, you leave your apartment building and start picking your way through the city.

The streets are all clogged with crashed cars, from people who dissolved while driving. There’s fires everywhere because people disappeared in the middle of cooking, with makeshift firefighting groups struggling to put them out. There’s wreckage in some places- one friend who answered told you that a helicopter crashed into the building right next to hers. Another, who was in the hospital with his injured father, described how the hospital was frantically trying to treat the huge influx of injuries with only half of their staff.

Everywhere you go, there are people in huddled groups, probably meeting up in the same way you are. They whisper and hug and cry on one another’s shoulders. You keep on walking.

Finally, you get to the school just before 12. It looks surprisingly untouched, even normal- removed from the world around you. And there’s a group of people you recognize in front of the gates.

You run up to them and crash into a hug with your best friend, because just hearing their voice on the phone doesn’t compare to the relief of holding them and knowing they really are safe. You stay like that for a minute, and then you let go and hug all of your other friends just as tight. You know just by looking at them that they’ve lost parents and friends over the last day too.

Just like you, many of them are now orphans.

Ned is already here too, talking to Michelle and other people you don’t know as well.

“I called Liz from where she is in Oregon and she says she’s fine,” Michelle says. “But...Flash is gone,” she continues quietly, “Along with half of the people from academic decathlon.”

Ned nods and swallows hard. “You...you haven’t been able to get in contact with Peter, right?”

Michelle just shakes her head. “No. Have you?”

Ned shakes his head too. “No. Not at all.” He stares at the ground.

“I guess that means he’s really gone.”

Ned starts to sob and he and Michelle hug silently.

 

You walk back to your apartment building, having to take detours to avoid fires and dangerous parts of the city. On the way home, you stop by a small grocery shop to buy food, since you have to cook for yourself now. There’s no one working in the store, but there’s still food on the shelves, so you take some and leave some money on the counter.

Once you get home, you drop the food in the kitchen and collapse into bed, staring up at the ceiling again.

The Avengers always fixed everything before, you think. Things might have been terrifying and people still died, but at least they were able to fix it to some extent. You remember living in New York during the Chitauri invasion. You and your mom had to evacuate and huge amounts of the city were destroyed, but at the end the Avengers defeated the aliens, and eventually the city was all rebuilt.

Now, you don’t know what even the Avengers could do about this situation. They can’t bring all the people who died back. You don’t even know where the Avengers are, if they’re off fighting the person who did this somewhere or if they all dissolved and died too. You don’t know what caused any of this. No one does.

You have no idea what the world is going to be like after this, and that terrifies you.

You roll over in bed and cry yourself to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, the ending is kind of purposefully ambiguous because I don't know what's going to happen in the next movie. I didn't plan to write in second person at first, but it just came out that way and it was pretty interesting since I've never written in second person before.
> 
> (Poor Ned...he doesn't know whether Peter died fighting with the Avengers or if he just dissolved...turns out it's both)
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
